Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis

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Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis

3.44 of 5 stars 3.44 · rating details · 257 ratings · 70 reviews

A year in Paris . . . since World War II, countless American students have been lured by that vision—and been transformed by their sojourn in the City of Light. Dreaming in French tells three stories of that experience, and how it changed the lives of three extraordinary American women.

All three women would go on to become icons, key figures in American cultural, intellect...more A year in Paris . . . since World War II, countless American students have been lured by that vision—and been transformed by their sojourn in the City of Light. Dreaming in French tells three stories of that experience, and how it changed the lives of three extraordinary American women.

All three women would go on to become icons, key figures in American cultural, intellectual, and political life, but when they embarked for France, they were young, little-known, uncertain about their future, and drawn to the culture, sophistication, and drama that only Paris could offer. Yet their backgrounds and their dreams couldn’t have been more different. Jacqueline Bouvier was a twenty-year-old debutante, a Catholic girl from a wealthy East Coast family. Susan Sontag was twenty-four, a precocious Jewish intellectual from a North Hollywood family of modest means, and Paris was a refuge from motherhood, a failing marriage, and graduate work in philosophy at Oxford. Angela Davis, a French major at Brandeis from a prominent African American family in Birmingham, Alabama, found herself the only black student in her year abroad program—in a summer when all the news from Birmingham was of unprecedented racial violence.

Kaplan takes readers into the lives, hopes, and ambitions of these young women, tracing their paths to Paris and tracking the discoveries, intellectual adventures, friendships, and loves that they found there. For all three women, France was far from a passing fancy; rather, Kaplan shows, the year abroad continued to influence them, a significant part of their intellectual and cultural makeup, for the rest of their lives. Jackie Kennedy carried her love of France to the White House and to her later career as a book editor, bringing her cultural and linguistic fluency to everything from art and diplomacy to fashion and historic restoration—to the extent that many, including Jackie herself, worried that she might seem “too French.” Sontag found in France a model for the life of the mind that she was determined to lead; the intellectual world she observed from afar during that first year in Paris inspired her most important work and remained a key influence—to be grappled with, explored, and transcended—the rest of her life. Davis, meanwhile, found that her Parisian vantage strengthened her sense of political exile from racism at home and brought a sense of solidarity with Algerian independence. For her, Paris was a city of political commitment, activism, and militancy, qualities that would deeply inform her own revolutionary agenda and soon make her a hero to the French writers she had once studied.

Kaplan, whose own junior year abroad played a prominent role in her classic memoir, French Lessons, spins these three quite different stories into one evocative biography, brimming with the ferment and yearnings of youth and shot through with the knowledge of how a single year—and a magical city—can change a whole life. No one who has ever dreamed of Paris should miss it.(less)

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published April 2nd 2012 by University Of Chicago Press (first published January 1st 2012)

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Jul 27, 2012 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

Alice Kaplan has written a captivating biography of three Americans, Jacqueline Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis during the year each spent in Paris in early adulthood. Along with lessons learned, language and culture absorbed, and viewpoints crystalized, the book tells the story of aesthetic, bohemian, and political Paris. Each woman was influenced by different aspects of the city which later defined their contributions to America.

For Jacqueline Kennedy, the Paris aesthetic began with he...more Alice Kaplan has written a captivating biography of three Americans, Jacqueline Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis during the year each spent in Paris in early adulthood. Along with lessons learned, language and culture absorbed, and viewpoints crystalized, the book tells the story of aesthetic, bohemian, and political Paris. Each woman was influenced by different aspects of the city which later defined their contributions to America.

For Jacqueline Kennedy, the Paris aesthetic began with her lifelong interest in the literature of 17th century France. From French clothing designers Oleg Cassini and Givenchy who dressed her elegantly with a-line dresses and pill box hats while she was First Lady, to the complex tastes of French cuisine which bewildered her husband and guests at White House dinners, Jacqueline read, dreamed, and lived in a French world in her mind.

Susan Sontag arrived in Paris at age 24 as a fellow from Oxford. If Jacqueline's experience of France was outside her (in Luxembourg Gardens, the Louvre, design), Susan Sontag's were all internal. It is during this year 1957-58 that she experienced sexual freedom and discovery. Susan got herself to Europe on her own, absent her husband and child. It was the Paris of her favorite novel NIGHTWOOD by Dyuna Barnes that she sought and secured with an intense love affair with a woman. Susan left Paris with the conviction that she could be an intellectual without being a professor, and it was to the life of the mind that she dedicated her life.

Angela Davis' political views were first observed in the racial freedom she experienced in Paris. Issues of decolonization and black identity were introduced, mastered, and authenticated in Paris and lived out when she returned to American soil. It is interesting that her former French friends came to testify on her behalf and today there is a school named for her in Paris.

What is it about France and women? It is only about wardrobe, designer bags and poodles? Or is it best summed up by Napolean's proclaimation that all women, to know who they are, must spend at least six months in Paris. Alice Kaplan agrees, but she would extend it to one year. Highly Recommended!
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Jun 26, 2012 Ari rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: france, read-in-2012

"Jacqueline Bouvier arrived with her upper-class connections; Susan Sontag, the self-invented European, with her opinions; Angela Davis, with her sense of justice and her fearlessness. They were in their twenties, reaching that existentential threshold where you start to see what you can do with what you've been given. France was the place where they could become themselves, or protect themselves from what they didn't want to become, as products of their families, their societies. Their Parisia...more

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Jun 04, 2012 Jaylia3 rated it 5 of 5 stars

Though on the surface they don’t have a lot in common, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis have each been at the forefront of cultural revolutions in style, art, intellect and/or politics. They also each spent a student year in France, and in this absorbing and well researched book Alice Kaplan explores how their lives and work were enriched by their continuing sense of connection with that country. Besides offering unique insights into the backgrounds and accomplishments o...more

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May 18, 2012 Kacy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: france

I attended a book reading by the author recently and it was amazing to learn of the number of people Ms. Kaplan tracked down and talked to while writing the book. She made a conscious decision not to contact Angela Davis, but to focus on her as she did the others - by talking to friends and associates and delving into their libraries.

I was surprised that the author actually had new things to say about Jackie that the general public doesn't already know.

Susan Sontag was somewhat of a mystery to...more

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May 11, 2012 Jimmie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Being something of an amateur Francophile, I read this book on a whim, but then was pleasantly surprised to find it full of some unexpected personal historical references. The common thread for three otherwise diverse personalities, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis, is the fact that they all spent around a year studying abroad in France during the formative years of their early adulthood. In 1962-63, I also spent year and a half of my early adulthood in France, not as a...more Being something of an amateur Francophile, I read this book on a whim, but then was pleasantly surprised to find it full of some unexpected personal historical references. The common thread for three otherwise diverse personalities, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis, is the fact that they all spent around a year studying abroad in France during the formative years of their early adulthood. In 1962-63, I also spent year and a half of my early adulthood in France, not as a student, but as an enlisted soldier in the United States Army. Granted, I was not immersed in the daily study of the French language and culture as these amazing women were, but I was definitely influenced by French society through my somewhat limited contact. Alice Kaplan, the author, explains my circumstances quite clearly: "For some Americans, the early 1960s was an era of idealism and service, Vietnam a cloud on the horizon." I took President Kennedy's "Ask not what your country..." speech literally as a high school senior and enlisted in the Army in 1961, two weeks after graduating high school.

Each of this book's three subjects had their own specific reasons for studying in France, and of the three, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was the only one with a definitive French ancestry. She studied there during the 1949-50 school year when I was in elementary school, was a debutante, and moved among the upper crust of post-war French society. Although her schooling in France had nothing to do with my personal history, her subsequent years as First Lady certainly did. She was a friend and admirer of Charles de Gaulle who ordered all American troops out of France when I was stationed there (my unit subsequently transferred to Germany). I didn't realize how much Jackie loved the French culture until I read this book and now wonder how much she would still be admired these days in the current American political climate.

I found the motives of Susan Sontag to be the most difficult of the three to understand and accept. As a prodigy she had attended several major universities in the United States (including UCLA, my alma mater) before studying in France in the late 50s. She was in her early twenties at the time, married, and had a child whom she basically abandoned to study in Paris, and her infatuation with an intense lesbian love affair dominated all else.

Angela Davis was teaching at UCLA when I was a student there, but my interests were in studying, not in following her concurrent controversies. I can, however, attest to the evils of the segregated South in 1961 while I was attending Signal School at Fort Gordon, near Augusta, Georgia. Upon arriving at the Augusta Airport from Los Angeles, I saw the "Whites Only" and "Colored Only" signs on the airport water fountains and bathrooms, quite a shock, even then, for a young man born and raised in California. A few weeks later a group of us student soldiers went to downtown Augusta on a weekend pass. One of the members of our small group was a black kid from Chicago, and someone suggested we go into a diner for a bite to eat; he refused, saying he was not allowed to go in there. This same kid who we had meals with in the mess hall every day was not allowed to eat with us outside the post. It still amazes me to this day that this existed in my own country.(less)

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Jun 08, 2012 Gary McTiernan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-ebooks, gave-up-on

I started out really liking this but my interest dropped off (terminally) as I tried to make sense out of the political controversy swirling around Angela Davis. It seemed to me that the thread holding the three stories together (the influence of study-abroad years in Paris) snapped. Maybe I should have soldiered on but I just didn't care anymore. C'est dommage!

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Mar 21, 2013 Valerie added it

This book examines how Jackie Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis were influenced by time spent in France during their early 20s. For JK and AD, this meant college study abroad programs during two very different times: just after World War 2 in JK's case, and in the wake of Algerian independence from France in AD's case. Susan Sontag followed a lover to Paris in the 1950s, but didn't formally study in France. The sections of this book devoted to JK and AD are the strongest: how learn...more

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May 18, 2012 angela rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dreaming in French needs a different title. Yes, each of these women studied in Paris, and were influenced by French culture, but the focus is not really Paris, nor France. It is a worthwhile read, but a bit disjointed in its delivery and theory.

I must admit, I skimmed the Kennedy section. I've never been terribly intrigued by Camelot, ergo, JBK life was not a focus. What I did learn about Kennedy via the Sontag section was that she was far more the intellectual than one would assume. I now won...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Katherine, Diane

The title drew me in. My mom used to theorize that young girls fell in love with French or horses - she and I seem to have been horse people, my sister a French person - and that memory was enough to pick up the book and take a look. I know who all the women of this book are, but none of them had ever been of particular interest. They all fit into different segments of the various Histories encountered in school. What made this book intriguing was linking them through their common experience of...more The title drew me in. My mom used to theorize that young girls fell in love with French or horses - she and I seem to have been horse people, my sister a French person - and that memory was enough to pick up the book and take a look. I know who all the women of this book are, but none of them had ever been of particular interest. They all fit into different segments of the various Histories encountered in school. What made this book intriguing was linking them through their common experience of France. I enjoyed most the stories of Kennedy and Davis; Sontag was a bit unnerving.

I suspect I imagine France as it was in the late 40s and early 50s - when Julia Child was hanging out there - and so the descriptions of Jacqueline's experiences were most...endearing? Familiar? Kennedy is a sympathetic figure - sort of this distant princess that no one really knows, but who everyone feels the need to care for - and that probably helped too. I liked the idea of the rebirth of a country - of the rebuilding of France - that was woven into her experience of France. The impression left by the book was that she loved France very much, but had to be American enough to satisfy Americans, and that she managed to balance this without giving up herself.

Sontag was not nearly as sympathetic. The author's description of Sontag leaving her child behind is fairly gentle, but horrified me, nonetheless. Perhaps because we are guilty of similar abandonment, if only in our thoughts. I was sad that she was born in a time when homosexuality was so taboo that she felt she had to escape. There is a description of her showing up in court in lipstick and a skirt that provides insight into that world. The judge saw her appearance as proof that she was not a lesbian. A long way to go still, of course, but a great deal has changed.

The book supports the idea that living and studying abroad provides students with a view of the United States through the eyes of a different nation. Davis saw America through the lens of the France that had embraced and accepted African American soldiers, writers, musicians and artists for decades. She arrived just before the Birmingham church bombing, and in French papers it was reported in detail, it was okay to suggest that a white person was suspected, and her own horror at the event was shared on the printed page. Davis also saw a very different France from the one that so many African Americans had found liberating and accepting. She witnessed the same violence against Algerians that she had seen in Birmingham. My impression of Davis was that of a very different kind of distant figure from Kennedy - she doesn't need anyone to take care of her. What I enjoyed most about Davis' story were the descriptions of what she was reading and thinking about - Proust, especially.

Throughout the book, there are new ways of looking at what it means to be an American, and how that meaning has changed through the three generations of these women. There are also great descriptions of the ideas of French philosophers. A good, enjoyable book to read and think about.(less)

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Jan 03, 2013 Samuel Zaber rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Late American history fans, Francophiles,

Recommended to Samuel by: Grandmother

The primary myth of self-identification that we Americans have created is one of independence. Despite the fact that our nation and its culture are drawn from nations and cultures around the world we like to see ourselves as self reliant, the shining city on an isolated hill, a group of hard-up settlers who transformed the wilderness in paradise with nothing but our own hands. While most of us can probably agree that this myth holds little truth it can be disturbingly easy to lose ourselves in t...more The primary myth of self-identification that we Americans have created is one of independence. Despite the fact that our nation and its culture are drawn from nations and cultures around the world we like to see ourselves as self reliant, the shining city on an isolated hill, a group of hard-up settlers who transformed the wilderness in paradise with nothing but our own hands. While most of us can probably agree that this myth holds little truth it can be disturbingly easy to lose ourselves in this myth. If Alice Kaplan’s new book achieves only one thing it is that this book reminds us that our intellectual and cultural leaders do not exist in an America-only vacuum. The book is divided into three biographies that explore the relationship between their subjects and France, specifically focusing on the year or two that each spent in La Belle France.

The American notion of France is divided. We have, among others, the glittering lives of the 18th century nobles (and their subsequent bloody end); the easily dismissed effeminate French with their black and white striped shirts and the men sporting ridiculously thin mustaches; the Paris with panache; the France of Jean-Paul Sartre and the France of Julia Child. Of course these attempts of reducing a nation, a people, to such simple strokes is obviously absurd. France, like America, like Guinea, like every nation in the world, is a complex mixture of culture and history that can only be fully described in a 2,000 page tome*. Ms. Kaplan’s choice of subjects helps to show the diversity of the French identity. Yes, Ms. Sontag and Ms. Davis both are notable social commentators (although this is only one part of each of their identities) but Ms. Kennedy? (One can almost hear, “One of these things is not like the other,” playing in the background.)

The France that Ms. Kennedy arrives in is rebuilding after the horrific Nazi occupation. Not only is the nation rebuilding itself structurally and economically but also socially as it tries to figure out what sort of nation it now is. Ms. Sontag’s Paris is the Paris of the great American expatriates who spoke English in their tiny flats and over cheap croissants. Her Paris is not the more chic Paris that Ms. Kennedy experienced but it is the physical location of an American counter-culture. It is the France of Ms. Davis that I found most fascinating as it is the farthest from the France that I’m familiar with. When she first arrives she enters into the world of existential philosophers but soon she is caught up in the French-Algerian dynamics that would influence her revolutionary ideals. Ms. Kaplan deftly shows how Ms. Davis’ experiences with the race relations of a foreign culture would become useful not only in forming her ideas on society but also useful in her activism.

Readers who pick up this book looking for standard biographies of these three remarkable women will not find what they went looking for. Rather they will find Ms. Kaplan putting forth (and persuasively arguing) a thesis on how Paris helped to shape the lifestyles and politics that Ms. Kennedy, Sontag and Davis would become known for. If I was forced to pick a fault with this book, to lay out a major critique, it might be that Ms. Kaplan’s thesis is grander than the argument she puts forward. Except, except that might be the exact reason why this book is important. In our hero worship of our American Greats we dismiss the possibility that they relied on others (particularly foreign others) to help them form their identities. We need to be reminded that even our 20th century cultural and intellectual leaders did not spring fully formed from their mothers’ wombs.

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Apr 29, 2012 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, midcentury, read-in-2012

3.5 stars. The section on Jackie O was really enjoyable because it was more biographical--this is what she did, this is where she went (and yes, I admit I liked the "this is what she wore"). Susan Sontag and Angela Davis are fascinating characters, but their sections were so much drier and less chatty, I almost felt like I was reading an academic text at times. I love the idea of this book, taking three wildly interesting and divergent people, with this one thing in common (and "a year in Paris"...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: french-theme, kennedys

I bought this book for the section on Jackie Kennedy. As another lover of French, I really enjoyed reading more about her lifetime interaction with France and French. It was fun to remember her TV program on the decoration of the White House and her trip to Paris with JFK. Fun also to note things I have in common with her, like having studied 17th century French literature in French, and being able to communicate in French, German, and Spanish. I was surprised to find out later on that Angela Da...more

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Sep 22, 2012 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a very well researched study of three famous women whose lives took on a new trajectory through the studies abroad program. Kaplan provides details about their lives that are rarely discussed, rounding out the often stylized popular views of three seminal figures in feminist history. And, yes, I include Jackie O in that category. I think that you will be properly impressed with both the research and the character studies. Wish I had a time travel machine, though I often wish for that!!

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May 21, 2012 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Calling all Francophiles - this is a must for you! Whether you've spent a day, a week or a year in France, or simply visited there in your dreams, you will love this book. Reading the indelible mark that Paris made on these 3 women helped me see how my own life has been marvelously changed from my love affaire with la Belle France. This book richly describes the stories of these changes,enriching the reader's own life and imagination in the process. I highly recommend it!

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Jul 27, 2012 Gabrielle Louise rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-must-haves

Great book! I read it for Summer Reading, and it was one of the best assigned readings that I completed. I really enjoyed Alice Kaplan's construction of the three biographies - not many authors can intertwine the stories of three different women so gracefully. I recommend this to anyone who doesn't know EVERYTHING about these three women. Take some time to learn some not-so-common knowledge about a beautiful city, ground-breaking women, and a fantastic language.

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Nov 27, 2012 Sara Barz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interesting comparison between the years in Paris of Jackie O., Sontag, and Davis. From the structure of the book, I got a sense of just how much France changed from the Post WWII recovery to the Algerian War to the political upheaval of the 1960s. That said, I found the author to stretch the analysis a bit to suit her pursuit of parallelism. The comparison felt forced at times to create links between the three women.

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Sep 25, 2012 Monica rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to get caught up in the Parisian experiences of these three amazing women but instead I spent a week trudging through chapter after chapter, waiting for an emotional connection.The author seems to have compiled this book from a scattered list of dates and sporadic journal entries/letters. While fascinated with the book's premise, I walk away from this book feeling disappointed, with little more insight into these 3 strong women than I had a week ago.

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Sep 06, 2012 Margaret Dillon rated it 2 of 5 stars

The idea was intersting: take three very different women who came to Paris at three different periods and examine the way the experience changed them (and in the case of Angela Davis, how the experience changed the French). The first and third sections were fairly intereting but I gave up on the Sontag section which dealt mostly with her philosphy and was very academic.

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Apr 14, 2013 Angelina rated it 5 of 5 stars

A beautiful account of the years three seemingly unrelated women spent in Paris and how those experiences came to shape the powerful, iconic figures they would become later in life. Exquisitely constructed and eloquently written. I was completely captivated by the stories of Jacqueline Kennedy, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis and the light through which Kaplan tells them.

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Mar 11, 2013 Kayle added it

I have a special love-disdain relationship with books about people's experience in La Belle France. They almost always focus on Paris exclusively and romanticize a city that is lovely, but not without flaws. This book states it's purpose clearly in the title which serves as a thesis for the sections of the book. Focusing on three dynamic American women's experiences in the City of Light it tries and succeeds in portraying Paris as conceived and adopted by Jacqueline, Susan and Angela. I enjoyed...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Dewayne Stark rated it 3 of 5 stars

Angela Davis is my choice for readiness this book. The lady with the Afro taught at my daughter's school in San Francisco. I was a follower of Davis for years and saw her at SFSU with her table at lunch time. Having lived in California during Ronnie's years I often wonder why they didn't have arm bands.

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Jul 03, 2012 Donna rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

This is a well written book discussing the time Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag,and Angela Davis spend in Paris as students. Each woman used the experience to shape her life, and their impact on society is compelling. The history surrounding their visits is chronicled well, but, I didn't get drawn into the stories as I hoped I would. It felt like a textbook to me.

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Sep 17, 2012 Ann Pearlman rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought that the research and all the details included bogged down the flow of the book. I loved the scenes in Paris, and especially loved learning about the French reaction to Angela Davis and her connection with Genet as well as Foucault. For me well worth reading the book.

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Apr 24, 2013 Kate Wynn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not my usual kind of book but being a Francophile the title drew me in. I'm not American so the ladies were less familiar to me but Kaplan did an admirable job of pulling the three together through their common experiences. I'm actually interested to go back and look again at the writings of the latter two.

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Jun 14, 2012 Heidi rated it 4 of 5 stars

A bit academic, but I valued being reminded of what it was like to be a woman with talent in the 50s and 60s... as well as a woman with talent who might also be black or lesbian. It was also fun to hear about what their lives were like as Americans abroad in France at that time.

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Mar 19, 2013 Carly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Overall an enjoyable read! Completely changed how I will now think of Jackie Kennedy, and I found the bits comparing racial politics in France vs. the U.S. in the section on Angela Davis to be very interesting as well. The section on Susan Sontag didn't quite do it for me as much as the other two... it was less biographical and more on how France shaped her writing and style, which I personally did not find as interesting. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who has, will, or wants to live...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Susan Neufeldt rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a journey through the lives of three very different, very bright and intellectually sophisticated, women for a period in Paris in their twenties. Each was changed by her time in Paris, and each affected both American and French culture in quite different ways.

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Jan 13, 2013 Channing rated it 3 of 5 stars

Superbly written and unique. However, Jackie Kennedy's relationship with France is the clearest while Angela Davis's is particularly complicated. On the whole, I enjoyed the first two chapters and my enjoyment decreased slightly after that.

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Apr 22, 2013 Amber rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1950, 1960, 1940, biography, black, civil-rights, graduate-school, homosexuality, nonfiction, paris, philosophy, politics, women, academic, study-abroad

I really wanted to love this book because it combined many elements I enjoy reading about. Though I admit the Jackie Bouvier and Angela Davis sections where exciting, the Susan Sontag section lagged. And honestly, I had a hard time finding connections with these three women. Yes, all three of them were a part of Parisian study abroad programs and became luminaries in American life...but it just didn't do it for me.

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Jun 06, 2012 Gina Rippens rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-paris-obsession

An interesting look at these women's experiences in Paris and how it inspired them. The book, however, reads like a dissertation and I found it less than inspiring. Not what I was hoping to get from a book titled " Dreaming in French.".

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